It wasn’t until I pulled back the curtain that I saw her.

I slam the computer shut, willing the memory to leave me.

The vision of my mother dead, her body at an unnatural angle. The water was freezing, and it’d turned her lips blue. It didn’t stop me from shaking her. From trying to make her wake up.

I screamed and cried out helplessly even though I knew we were alone. There was no one to help. I had to leave her to call the police. I couldn’t though, not for a long time. I was shivering in my wet clothes by the time I ran down the stairs to call the cops. I couldn’t believe she was gone, but she was limp and heavy and so cold.

It didn’t take long for the police to come. Commissioner Haynes was there first.

My father took hours to arrive, though. Hours of sitting on my bed, being questioned over and over until I wasn’t sure anymore what had happened.

I only knew I felt completely alone in the world.

The first thing my father said to me was, “I thought you were staying over at your friend’s this weekend.” No sorrow was evident. No sympathy that I’d found my mother dead in the shower.

His tone carried an accusation even. I remember staring up at him. The police moved around the house, blurring my vision as my father came into focus and the pieces clicked into place.

For years I’ve felt he was responsible and even now, even after he’d managed to convince me on the phone that it wasn’t him, I imagine he’s somehow involved.

I can’t shake my gut feeling.

I want to murder him.

The thought makes me close my eyes, trying to rein in the anger from today and from all the years of second-guessing what happened to my mother.

When I open them, they’ve adjusted to the darkness and I stare at my phone.

I’ve asked him, but he’s a liar. I already know he’s capable of murder.

Everything in me is telling me it’s my father who hired that man and possibly left the note to scare Jules off before deciding to kill her. I have no other leads.

The person who left a note had different handwriting than his though, more feminine. Perhaps he has a partner or maybe he hired someone but who would he trust?

The only other enemy I have is Liam. He’s married, but I can’t see it being him and having his wife involved. And Liam wasn’t around when my mother died.

I run my hand down my face, feeling exhaustion weighing down on me, but not wanting to sleep. I can’t. I’m too afraid to take my eyes away from Jules. My guard refuses to go down for even a second.

I know she hasn’t forgotten everything and that maybe the other night, the moment we shared, was a mistake in her eyes. It kills me just to imagine her thinking of it as if that’s all it was. A mistake.

The sound of her stirring on the bed and the accompanying slow movements catch my attention. A soft sound of pain carries through the air, and I rise to see if she’s all right.

She turns on her side, pulling the sheet between her legs and letting it fall off her gorgeous curves. I brush her hair from her face, leaning down to kiss her gently on the cheek, loving how she can’t fight me in her sleep.

When I pull back, her long lashes flutter open and she looks up at me. At first there’s a softness to her expression, like the way she used to look at me. But it quickly changes, the trace of a smile dimming as her memories come back to her.

Her shoulders tense and she turns her head, but she doesn’t push me away, even as I run my hand down to her waist and sit next to her on the bed.

The bed protests as I climb in under the sheet, still in my white undershirt and flannel pajama pants. I sigh heavily, feeling exhaustion desperately try to force me to sleep as I rest my head on the pillow and pull Jules close to me.

Just like earlier this week, she lets me hold her. She doesn’t hold me back, though. Her hand merely rests against my chest, her head on my shoulder. Still, I’ll take it. The feel of her small body pressed to mine, the faint sounds of her breathing and the way she nestles her head down against me, brushing the hair from her face is everything to me.

“Talk to me, Jules,” I say softly. I miss her. I miss the banter and her optimistic energy. I miss her stories and the sweet sound of her laughter. “I miss you,” I confess.

“I’m not sure if we’re okay,” she says quietly, as if it’s a reminder to herself. “There are parts of you that scare me.”

I tell her, “But not all of me.”

Her eyes are wide open but staring across the room. I readjust my shoulders on the pillow, keeping my arm around her and debating what to tell her. She’s quiet for a long time but then she asks, “You said Jace had a woman killed?”

I can only nod.

She’s silent, obviously waiting for me to continue.

“I didn’t know him well, but he was…” I pause to take a deep breath and stare at the mirror across the room. In the reflection I can see the top of Jules’s head resting on my chest. Her eyes are vacant, as if she’s broken. Not the woman I once knew, not the Jules I fell in love with. She’s not running from me, as if this new woman has become resigned to her fate.

“I saw him for a meeting, and it was the only time I met him,” I tell her. I want to explain and I pray she understands.

She shifts on my chest and I splay my hand on her back to keep her close to me, to keep her from moving away, but I don’t have to. She’s only readjusting and she stays with her cheek pressed against my chest as she pulls the sheet up higher.

“I did it,” I say, feeling the words dying to come out of me. To tell her the truth. To tell her how angry he made me. How Jace was so sure of himself, so happy with what he’d done. “Her life was meaningless to him.”

“Whose? Whose life?” Jules brings her hand back toward herself, retreating slightly but I reach out to grab it. I bring her fingers to my lips and slowly kiss each knuckle. She doesn’t look at me while I do, but when I set her hand back down, she leaves it there.

I don’t know what to make of her in this moment. Maybe she’s numb, but she’s receptive. She’s lost her fight to deny it all.

“Her name was Avery.”

Jules shifts uncomfortably as she says the words before I can. “She was his mistress?”

I nod my head as I say, “I knew her as well.” It’s the gentlest way I can put it.

“You knew her?” Jules asks in a tight voice. It’s the loudest she’s spoken for this conversation.

“I did,” I answer honestly. “Obviously it was before we met. Before I knew you.”

She nods her head into my chest and whispers, “Why?”

“Why did he want to kill her?”

My question forces her expression to fall even farther, but she nods.

“She was pregnant,” I tell her and that’s the last straw for Jules’s composure. I hold her close as she tries to turn away. I kiss her shoulder as she hunches over and tries to hide her face from me.

“It’s okay,” I whisper into the tense air between us. The hurt and betrayal are echoed in her ragged breaths. I can only imagine how much it shredded her to hear the words, because it killed me to say them to her.

She pushes her hands against my chest slightly, and I let her go for a moment.

Sitting up as if searching for more air, she pushes the thick sheet off of her and pulls her long brunette hair over her shoulder as she scoots up the bed and readjusts herself to lean against the headboard. All the while I can see her reining in the emotions, hiding it all and shoving it down. But she’s swallowed the truth of it all: her husband wanted his mistress dead because she was pregnant. It will stay with her forever.